The Young Messiah – a scene guide
A scene-by-scene look at the 2016 film based on Anne Rice's novel Christ the Lord: Out of Egypt. Includes five clips from the film.
For paid subscribers: This is a slightly revised, ad-free version of a scene guide I first posted to my blog on March 18, 2016. You can read the original version here, and you can see more posts about the film—including my review of it and my interview with director Cyrus Nowrasteh—via the tags at that blog and this Substack.
Click here for more scene-by-scene guides to recent Bible films.
Last week I posted a scene guide for Risen, noting which scriptures different parts of the movie were based on. Now it’s The Young Messiah’s turn — and this time, matters are complicated by the fact that the film is based not directly on the Bible, but on Anne Rice’s novel Christ the Lord: Out of Egypt, which in turn makes use of Old and New Testament apocrypha in addition to the scriptures.
Because page numbers vary from edition to edition, the scene guide below notes which chapters in Rice’s novel the different scenes seem to be based on. Some scenes are based on multiple chapters, while other chapters are stretched out over multiple scenes. And, because a few scenes from the film have been made available online, I have included them in the scene guide where appropriate.
The Young Messiah – a scene guide (with clips)
1:10-1:45 — Prologue
The opening titles say “many Jews fled to Egypt” because of the “rebellion and chaos” under “Rome’s puppet king, Herod the Great.” But the opening titles also quote Matthew 2:13 — citing chapter and verse, even! — to the effect that Joseph took his own family to Egypt specifically because an angel appeared to him in a dream.
1:45-6:15 — Bullies in the street — Chapter 1
Jesus is playing in the street with his sister/cousin Salome, and his brother/cousin James is nearby too.
The Bible refers to the brothers of Jesus on many occasions (Mark 3:31-35; Matthew 12:46-49; Luke 8:19-21; John 2:12, 7:1-10; Acts 1:14; I Corinthians 9:5) — even giving names for four of them (Mark 6:3, Matthew 13:55) — and it refers to the sisters of Jesus, who remain anonymous, twice (Mark 6:3, Matthew 13:56).
James, in particular, was a prominent leader in the early church (Acts 12:17, 15:13-21, 21:18-25; I Corinthians 15:7; Galatians 1:18-20, 2:9-13; Jude 1) and is traditionally believed to be the author of the Epistle of James.
Orthodox and Catholic tradition hold that the brothers and sisters of Jesus were actually his step-siblings (children of Joseph from a previous marriage) or his cousins. Rice’s novel says James was a step-brother and all the other “brothers” were cousins, but the film makes James a cousin and eliminates all the other brothers.
The sisters of Jesus are not named in the Bible, but early Christian tradition gives them the names Mary and Salome. Only one of those “sisters” is depicted in the film, and she is named Salome, not Mary, presumably to avoid confusion with Mary the mother of Jesus. Salome was also the name of one of the women who witnessed the burial of Jesus (Mark 15:40) and discovered the empty tomb (Mark 16:1).
The bullies attack Jesus and he does not fight back. This may reflect the teaching of the adult Jesus that people should turn the other cheek (Matthew 5:38-39, Luke 6:29).
When Jesus tells the bully to stop chasing Salome, the Devil figure — described in the credits only as “The Demon” — causes the bully to trip, fall, and bang his head on a rock, thereby killing him. The crowd assumes that Jesus himself cursed the boy.
In Rice’s novel, Jesus does in fact kill the boy supernaturally, without realizing that that is what he has done — he has not mastered his powers yet — and in the Infancy Gospel of Thomas, a 2nd-century apocryphal text from which Rice took this story element, Jesus actually curses and kills multiple boys. But the film modifies this so that it is the Devil, not Jesus, who is responsible for the bully’s death.
6:15-9:00 — Jesus at home with his family — Chapter 1
James believes that Jesus cursed the dead boy. The not-entirely-sympatico relationship between Jesus and James in this film may reflect the gospel tradition that the adult brothers of Jesus did not believe in him during his ministry (John 7:5) and even thought he was crazy (Mark 3:21).
Mary tells James, “Don’t say that, he’s your cousin!” The idea that the siblings of Jesus were actually his cousins is first attested in St Jerome’s Against Helvidius, written sometime prior to AD 383. (The tradition that they were his step-siblings goes back at least a couple hundred years earlier, to the Infancy Gospel of James.)
Jesus’ uncle Cleopas and aunt Miriam enter the room. Cleopas is one of the two people who met the resurrected Jesus on the road to Emmaus (Luke 24:13-35), and he may be identical to Clopas, whose wife Mary (or Miriam, in Hebrew) was at the Crucifixion (John 19:25). A 2nd-century writer named Hegesippus said Clopas was the brother of Joseph, but in Rice’s novel and the film, Cleopas is Mary’s big brother.
Salome tells Jesus to raise the dead boy, the same way he raised a dead bird. In the Infancy Gospel of Thomas, and in Rice’s novel, Jesus turns clay birds into living birds, but in the film, he raises an actual bird that was living and then died.
Jesus sneaks out the window to go raise the dead boy. This is the first of at least two instances in which Jesus will sneak away from his parents in the film. In the book, Jesus runs through the crowd where his parents can see him.
